Install Kong Gateway Operator

The Kong Gateway Operator can deploy and manage Data Planes connected to a Konnect Control Plane. Configuration for services, routes, and plugins is managed entirely through Konnect and propagated automatically to Data Planes.

Add the Helm chart repository to your local Helm client and update the repo to fetch the latest charts:

helm repo add kong https://charts.konghq.com
helm repo update kong

Create the kong namespace in your Kubernetes cluster, which is where the Getting Started guide will run:

kubectl create namespace kong

Use Helm to install the Kong Gateway Operator with Konnect support enabled:

helm upgrade --install kgo kong/gateway-operator -n kong-system --create-namespace \
  --set image.tag=1.6.1 \
  --set kubernetes-configuration-crds.enabled=true \
  --set env.ENABLE_CONTROLLER_KONNECT=true

Wait for readiness

Wait for the Kong Gateway Operator’s controller deployment to become available before proceeding, ensuring it’s ready to manage resources:

kubectl -n kong-system wait --for=condition=Available=true --timeout=120s deployment/kgo-gateway-operator-controller-manager

Once the Kong Gateway Operator is ready, you can begin provisioning Gateway Control Planes and Data Planes using Konnect CRDs, the output will look like:

deployment.apps/kgo-gateway-operator-controller-manager condition met